It started with two men, 10,000 miles apart, looking for a way to collaborate on a design for plastic prosthetic fingers.

It was 2012, the dawn of consumer-level, 3-D printers — desktop models, the size of a microwave oven and, at $2,000 to $3,000 apiece, much more affordable than industrial or commercial printers.

Ivan Owen, an artist based in Washington state who specializes in mechanical special effects, and Richard Van As, a carpenter in South Africa who lost four fingers on his right hand in a saw accident, emailed MakerBot Industries for help.

“We knew it was quite a long shot,” Owen said in a 2014 Tedx Talk. “We’re two random guys. No background in this field. No credentials. But the company responded extremely positively. They sent us two printers.”

In two years, that simple act of charity grew into a worldwide movement changing thousands of lives.

There to here

Owen and Van As first made a device for Van As and for a South African child whose mother read about their Robohand on Facebook.

After that, the men were approached by many more parents. Then the magic of open-source technology — designs placed on the Internet for anyone to download and use for free — took the Robohand into labs, libraries, classrooms and homes across the globe.

Suddenly anyone who could work a 3-D printer and had basic knowledge of engineering software could take some measurements and make a Robohand, a plastic prosthetic hand that costs less than $10 in parts.

Robohands were being made for children with birth defects. They were being made for people who lost fingers in accidents and for children in Sudan who had lost limbs in the country’s civil war. Volunteers were teaming up on enablingthefuture.org to connect them with printers and people in need.

An Arkansas college houses a Robohand lab where students use dozens of 3-D printers to make Robohands for global distribution.

In March, Sharon and Jeromy Wicker of Roscoe brought the Robohand story to the Rock River Valley.

Long before that, another simple act of charity — the donation of a 3-D printer to the school — put Boylan on the cutting edge of technology education.

Page 2 of 3 - Unbeknownst to Boylan engineering instructor Bud May and his students, the printer would be their ticket to change a little girl’s life.

The MakerBot Replicator 2 was a gift to the school from Tim and Chevel Goodwin of the Data Center. The Goodwins, whose son is a Boylan graduate, donate regularly to the school as a way to give back to the community. In past years, the couple gave computer monitors and an educational license for the engineering software SolidWorks. A 3-D printer was the next natural step.

“They could work on those big-screen monitors, model with SolidWorks and shoot it off to the 3-D printer,” Tim Goodwin said. “That is huge. There was nothing like that in my high school. What a glimpse into real life.”

The Robohand project took it to a whole other level: Students were able to use the printer to build a Robohand for Kylie.

“In this world of ever-gloom and doom, it’s awesome to see these things happening,” Goodwin said. “These kids will remember this forever.”

A second hand

To show their appreciation, the Wickers showered the students in gifts — Culver’s gift cards, a dodgeball pizza party at Kids Spot in Roscoe, custom wristbands imprinted with Kylie’s name and “Thanks for lending a hand.” BelRock Asphalt Paving, owned by a family friend, gave the class $300.

And then, the Wickers’ other wish came true: The story came full circle.

“We thought about how we learned about this,” Sharon explained. “We found it on the Internet because another family put their story out there. ... So, for all of the other boys and girls out there and their parents, we wanted them to see that this is something they may want to look into. Maybe someone will see Kylie’s story and it will inspire them.”

After receiving her Robohand, Kylie was featured in newspaper articles and television shows across the country. Diana Block of Loves Park played a video of Kylie for her 12-year-old son, Kaeden Witt. He, Like Kylie, was born without fingers on his left hand.

Block called May and asked whether the class could make another hand. She was first in a long list of callers.

“We’ve gotten maybe two dozen requests, some from as far away as New York,” May said. “But we have to tell them no. ... I really think you’ve got to have someone local when you do it. You have to do some things to make it fit. It makes a big difference to have the person here. Plus, the students get to meet the person they’re helping, and they get that personal experience.”

Page 3 of 3 - What’s next

The reply to Block was yes.

Kaeden, a seventh-grader at Harlem Middle School, got his hand — a black-and-blue one — in mid-May.

He uses his Robohand to do everyday things, like hold an Xbox controller, and some new activities, like playing the guitar. Riding a bike is easier, too.

“We’re really looking forward to trying kayaking,” Diana said. “He’s gone canoeing with us before, using the one hand, but he’s never been able to try kayaking because you need both hands. So he’s excited for that.”

Diana and Kaeden hope to partner with the North Park Fire Protection District and host a fundraiser this year for Boylan.

‘We want to do something to say thank you,” Diana said. “Who knows, maybe we can help them buy another printer.”